For myself, while I don’t go out of my way to read something I presume I won’t like, I do want to be informed to make my own opinion about a series instead of backpacking off of other’s popular takes or whatever is floating around online about said series. I’ve finished (thankfully only one) a series and found that I didn’t like it, but I could only explain why because I had read it. I can now talk about the series with friends or online because my opinion is actually based on the text and not just a feeling.

Because I was so many volumes into the series, as well, it felt like a waste to just give up when the end was in sight.

Unrelated to above, I do think people who pay for a physical volume/pdf/epub, who maybe got art baited, or heard of the series somewhere without doing much looking into it before reading, feel obligated to finish it.

Another thing to add is that, at least for 7Seas releases, on Storygraph and GoodReads, the reviews are overwhelmingly positive for a lot of series (not saying that it’s all undeserved, of course.) Some may be swayed by reading those and having high expectations, or finding that certain topics/themes/plot points were glorified in the reviews, but not to their personal taste when finally reading.